If you follow me on any kind of social media then you’ll have not missed that I’ve been going on about Project Violet for well over a year now. Well today, the results of the project are out! Either you’re fully on board and you’re booked in for the seminar tonight, (7pm) or perhaps you’re still left wondering what it’s all about. Book here to see how the findings can be responded to.
Project Violet is a collaboration between the Baptist Union of Great Britain (BUGB) and The Centre for Baptist Studies at Regents College, University of Oxford. Named after the first Baptist woman to be college trained for ordination, Violet Hedger. Led by Dr Helen Cameron, Research Fellow at Regents and Rev. Jane Day, Centenary Enabler at BUGB the project aims to investigate the experiences of women in ministry whilst at the same time developing women ministers. I was blessed to be able to be one of those women ministers, all of who were invited to conduct a piece of research in to an aspect of women in ministry that they were interested in. Throughout the research we were supported and encouraged to find our own voices as advocates for women’s justice and women in ministry in particular.
The first phase of the research was inviting women ministers to write a reflective piece to talk about their experiences of being a women in ministry. Although I wasn’t involved in this phase it fascinates me. The women’s stories, once submitted are embargoed for 20/30 years, which incredibly, was felt necessary so that they were free to be open and honest about their experiences without fear of repercussions. The stories are kept securely in the Angus library at Regents College, and themes from these stories were drawn out for further investigation by the the Phase 2 cohort of researchers (Cue, my part! - alongside 15 other women ministers too.)
In another post I’ll talk more about the research that I did, the experiences that I had which led me to be interested in this field, and the experience of conducting the research. In the meantime though I encourage you to take a look at some of the amazing resources which Project Violet have already produced.
Findings, Recommendations and Reports
The findings of the research are available here. Both recommendations for change and the individual research reports of all the Co-researchers.
Podcasts and Audio visual stuff
Season 1 Podcasts talks about the language and terms commonly used around women in ministry and challenges us about some of the intentional and unintentionally discriminatory sexist and misogynistic language that we might use. Season 2 highlight interviews with individual researchers talking about their projects.
Over the course of the project there have been a number of seminars which can be viewed here. They include a seminar about the role of deaconnesses, pioneering women, sexism in schools, insights from America, singleness and marriage (with my good friend Rev. Dr Lina Toth).
Further Reading
There is also a really helpful reading list called the Reading Room, which I’m slowly working my way through. If you find any of this remotely interesting then you’re bound to find something good to read there.
This post has been long enough already, next time I’ll get into more about the topic I’ve chosen and why. If you’ve any thoughts about the Project or the subject in general though feel free to drop a comment and start a conversation about it.